


Upside Down and Inside Out

by kittensalad



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, Gerry's sad okay, Human/Monster Romance, Implied Relationships, Light Angst, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other, canon divergence because i like the idea of michael tagging along, let him be sad, with gertrude after the transcendence failed, you are not immune to gerrymichael and neither am i
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22032955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittensalad/pseuds/kittensalad
Summary: Gerard definitely didn't cry when Michael Shelley died. He definitely didn't cry when he came back, either.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael, Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 19
Kudos: 179





	1. Gerard Keay Has a Heart of Stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for canon typical gore/mutilation! keep yourselves safe!

Gerard Keay has a heart of stone.

He’s watched his own mother skin herself, hang her flayed flesh from the ceiling to dry using meat hooks, like some morbid darkroom. He saw his father gouge his own eyes out with a corkscrew, laughing. He’s seen churches levelled with worshippers still trapped inside, killed insane hospital patients, even gone on trial for matricide, and never batted an eye.

People died. Gerard didn’t care. Life went on.

Gertrude had gone to Russia. Some place called Sannikova. She’d taken one of the younger assistants with her, a scrawny, straw-haired boy that went by the name of Michael Shelley. He wasn’t very good at his job, and people had started to speculate that Gertrude kept him around just because he made a nice cup of tea.

Gerard definitely didn’t like Michael Shelley. Couldn’t stand him. Definitely didn’t find himself smiling gently as the skinny boy flittered airily around the archives, or feel a tug in his chest as he bobbed the bag in Gertrude’s tea. Occasionally, Michael Shelley would flash a breathy smile at him, carrying a box too heavy for his thin toothpicks of arms to handle, and Gerard’s heart of stone would definitely not skip a beat. Sometimes, they’d have a quiet conversation about music or television, or how Gerard definitely didn’t like his tea with three sugars and cream, and Gerard would not reach out and touch Michael Shelley’s small, pale hand.

There had never been a cold, late night where Gerard had passed out on the cot in the breakroom, covered in bruises from some fateful encounter with an entity or other, and Michael Shelley had gently lay a quilt that smelt of mothballs and age over him. Gerard had never pulled him down, had never pushed their faces together, had never held the smaller boy there on the lumpy little mattress for hours in utter, but warm, silence.

He had not, without a doubt, brought his lips to Michael Shelley’s ear there, in the absolute dark, and whispered three tiny, hushed words. Michael Shelley had definitely not said them back.

When he received a phone call from Gertrude, reporting on the success of her ritual-aborting mission, and also that one Michael Shelley had unfortunately passed away in Zemlya Sannikova, Gerard Keay definitely did not cry.

Definitely.

Because Gerard Keay has a heart of stone.


	2. It is Not Michael Shelley

Gertrude had brought something back with her. She called it The Distortion. It looked like Michael Shelley, but it was not Michael Shelley.

Michael Shelley was dead. Thrown into the Worker-of-Clay’s labyrinthine nothingness and consumed, eaten alive by the Spiral. He was never coming back. Dead people didn’t come back, and Gerard had gotten over it.

At least, he’d gotten over it as much as copious amounts of alcohol, slamming your head into walls and screaming could. He’d gathered up the tiny pieces of his cold, stone heart and stuck them back together with tape. He was _okay now._ He had to be.

But now this thing was here, this… Not Michael Shelley. This thing that wore his face but _was not him_. _Could not_ be him. It stood in the fluorescent-lit hallway that lead to the archives, humming a sad tune that hurt Gerard’s ears. It was tall. Michael Shelley had been relatively lanky, but not taller than Gerard. This thing loomed a good four inches over him, and was wire thin, to the point where its legs looked as though they couldn’t sustain its weight, and its bones protruded sharply from under its clothes. Its hair was longer than Michael Shelley’s had ever been, falling in tight ringlets down its back and sweeping over its face, hiding the eyes.

And the shadow.

The shadow that it cast against the stark concrete floor was wrong. Its hands were long, with spider-like fingers trailing down past the knees and nails that twisted and curved but were pointed like knives, twitching gently. The darkness itself seemed to swirl and collapse in on itself, swaying at the edges of the thing’s warped form.

It wore Michael Shelley’s clothes. The woollen navy coat, the oversized shirt from some underground metal band or other that Gerard had given him, but they didn’t fit right, not anymore. Because this was _not Michael Shelley._

It began to move towards him. It could’ve been the lights, but it seemed like it left an afterimage of itself as it strode, legs stretching out in front as it took long, light steps on its toes. Its footsteps reverberated for an unnatural amount of time. The thing stopped in front of Gerard, far too close for comfort, and gazed down at him with those hidden eyes. It spoke, in a soft but high, echoing tone, sprinkled with fondness. It spoke in Michael Shelley’s voice.

“It’s nice to be back, Gerry,” it said.

Gerard turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading (:   
> come visit me on twitter @Dekkles__ or my tumblr @downwithjonnysims for more random nonsense


	3. It Has No Heart, Yet It Loves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS BEEN THREE MONTHS LMAO I FORGOT I WAS WRITING THIS BUT ABRACADABRA HERE I AM

The Distortion, or Michael, as it had now taken to being called, did not feel emotions. It had no brain in which to synthesize them, no neurotransmitters to bring them to life, and not even really a face to portray what it could feel within it's impossible, twisting vastness. What would it's expression look like, it thinks, when confined to the prison of a human form?

It thinks that it would be sad. Very sad. It thinks that it would be crying. It's tears would spiral, churn in unimaginably complicated fractal patterns and wind, weave through this dimension's barriers like a needle through fabric as they fell to the Archive floor. Normal, physics-abiding tears would not be able to portray the deepness of the sorrow the Distortion was currently feeling.

But it could not cry. It was not a being that had a need for tears. It was not even a being. It was a mass of concepts and shapes and corridors and senses and impulses unable to be defined by the written word, but it was not a being. Not even in the deepest, most twirled, most maddening bowels of the Distortion was there anything even vaguely resembling a being. Because a being was alive. The Distortion simply existed. 

It was like a virus. A collection of proteins and glycoproteins, nucleic acids, everything needed to sustain a real living organism, but it was never truly living. It was just a spiralling glitch wrapped up neatly in the shape of Michael. 

It had no heart with which to love; it's chest was empty aside from a bright and churning spiral, chromatic abberation and static filling the gaps where it's organs should be. And yet it... hurt. It _ached_.

The Distortion, being without a heart, brain, or corporeal form, had never experienced heartache before. It decided that it hated it.


	4. It is Not Not-Michael Shelley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is MY emotional support gerrymichael fic I will update it when I WANT to

"Gertrude."

The old woman was sitting at her desk, her glasses slipping from her nose, when Gerard walked in and cursed. He'd been walking through Chelsea for hours now, no real reason, just punching walls and kicking pebbles and drinking cheap beers, and he had been thoroughly soaked through by an evening downpour. His footsteps were loud and soggy as they traipsed muddy puddles across the archive floor.

"Yes, Gerard?" 

"What the _fuck_ have you done?" He knocked several manila folders from the old mahogany desk and slammed his dripping fists down loudly. He always had a flair for the dramatic.

Gertrude pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and gave a sigh. An _irritated_ sigh. That signature _Gertrude irritated sigh._ "There really isn't need for that kind of language, Gerard--"

"You said he died! You _said_ that.... that _thing_ , it wasn't him!"

"If you're referring to The Distortion, it isn't."

"But it _knew me_ , Gertrude! It _spoke_ to me!"

"It does have a voice. Of course it speaks."

"Oh, fuck off. You know that's not what I mean. It said it's 'good to be back'." At this, Gertrude's eyes widened ever so slightly, only such that one who had been studying her face intently would've noticed. 

"I think..." She took a long sip of her tea, some flagrant, floral mix that Gerard hated. Made her smell like a grandma. "I think it is confused. It doesn't know what it is. It's lost so many dimensions of itself, which must be overwhelming for such an entity." 

"But, is... is it him, Gertrude? Is it Michael?"

"No. But... well. It is also not _not_ Michael Shelley."

"What?"

"It is as much Archival Assistant Michael Shelley as you are the son of Mary Keay," Gertrude said.

Gerard didn't like that. He didn't like that one bit. He felt his face get hot, felt his nails dig into his palms, his brows furrow deep trenches into his forehead. He felt anger well up in that fiery pit inside his gut. 

"It is him as far as your body, your blood, where you came from, is you, Gerard. It looks like him, acts like him, it may even think it _is_ him, but it doesn't like it. It doesn't like being defined by what created it. It doesn't want to be _Michael Shelley._ Just as you don't want to be Gerard Keay." She took another polite sip of tea, slurping quietly, then rearranged a few papers knocked askew. "But it is. And it can't change that."

"Y... you don't make any sense. None of you make any fucking sense..." Gerard felt his eyes prickle at the corners.

"Can you imagine? Being an entity whose entire nature is to change and warp things, distort the truth, make people lose themselves... but being unable to change your own self?"

Gerard didn't answer.

"Neither can I."

She finished the last, leafy dregs of her tea, and placed the empty china cup on its matching saucer. Gerard threw it against the wall.

Gertrude didn't flinch. She saw it coming.


	5. Salt from a Height

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been SEVEN MONTHS but i am still in gerry delano hell let that be said

A new door had appeared in the archives. It would’ve normally been unremarkable, but the bright yellow paint stood out against all the earthen or industrial colors of the Institute. It flaked against the wood, piling on the floor like dandruff, and the handle was beginning to rust. It had appeared between stalls in the archive men’s room. A few archival staff had accidentally stumbled into it already, but the Distortion had been kind enough to spit them out. It was quite proud of itself for not eating them.

This Michael must’ve been a kind human, to influence the Spiral as such.

If those same, unlucky archival staff happened to return to it in a few decades’ time, well. That was neither here nor there.

It doesn’t come out much, Michael. Spends most of its time getting stuck in the place where Persian-printed carpet meets papered wall. Crawling into cracks in its mirrors and spreading itself across the floor like a color spectrum of Michael. Losing itself as it tries to fold its face inside-out, tries to work its eyes inside to look around, but keeps clipping off to the side and ending up Elsewhere. It stresses the fact that it _isn’t hiding_.

It’s just trying to work itself out.

Which is impossible.

It knows that.

The Distortion is not something that can be worked out. Its existence is the pure antithesis to ‘work out’. No-one can hope to understand it. It can’t even understand itself.

But, Michael thinks, impossible synapses firing in an impossible brain, birthing impossible thoughts, that because _it_ exists, impossibly, it can be worked out, impossibly. So it keeps tying itself up in increasingly complicated knots. It keeps turning its skin inside out. Keeps assembling and reassembling the regions of its brain like a spongy puzzle. It will understand.

It doesn’t.

><

The first time Gerard notices the new door in the archive men’s bathroom it is past midnight on a Saturday, he’s been hunting down cursed books and smells strongly of ethanol. His steps are uneven, his hair hasn’t been re-dyed and has faded to a doggish brown, and his shoes are untied. Michael would be lying if it said it wasn’t overjoyed to see the man, but Michael is always lying. Michael is the Liar.

Gerard eyes the new door with scorn. Squints at it through days-old panda eyes, black smudged across his face. The door shies away from such intense scrutiny, shrinking a little as the wood splinters and bows in timidity. For an entity without self, Michael feels oddly self-conscious about its paint job all of a sudden.

Gerard is no stranger to peeling yellow doors. He’s encountered them personally, after his matricide charge was acquitted, trying to lure him in, bait his overwhelmed, vulnerable mind. There’s a whole box of statements on the Spiral and its manifestations hidden away underneath Gertrude’s desk. He’s even found a Leitner once with a door inside it; tried to grab him by the face and drag him, compress him inside. This door is no surprise.

Now, Gerard’s mind makes a rash decision. One he definitely would not remake, were his ratios of bourbon to hours of sleep not 6:1. But he does make it, and there’s no changing that, not now. He raises a tattooed hand and gently raps his knuckles against the splintered plywood. It’s warm to the touch. Skin-temperature. Quite unsettling, actually.

The door shrinks again, frame bowing out, bending sharply from the plank of the door itself and paint flecks dropping from it like snow. Or dandruff. Salt from a height. By the end of this encounter, Michael wouldn’t be surprised if it could be used as Barbie furniture. It thinks the Stranger would get angry.

It doesn’t open. The door doesn’t swing invitingly ajar. Doesn’t unlatch itself, doesn’t unlock, doesn’t tempt the man inside at all. It just shivers gently under Gerard’s hand, more a vibration, the ripples of a hum. Indicating that it is simultaneously both alive and occupied. Michael will stress again that it _isn’t hiding._ Definitely not. It’s just trying to sleep off this horrible ache in its chest. This feeling like it has been staked through the heart and through the throat, neither of which Michael actually has. Makes the feeling worse.

Once again, Michael is the Liar. This does not exclude lying to itself.

“Fine. Ignore me.”

Gerard’s slurred words send another pang of _something_ , some _inexplicable horrible little something_ , through the Distortion’s fleshless form. The something runs down its hallways like a pulse, warping the wallpaper and wrinkling the carpet. Michael decides it doesn’t like this something. This something is guilt.

Michael makes itself presentable; steps into its skin, pulls it tautly over the undulating mess of itself. Puts the nose, the mouth, the eyes where they are supposed to be, sets them into its face like one would set flowers and sparkles into hot resin. It doesn’t get the hands right. It never gets the hands right. It goes to yell out, give a _hold on_ or a _just a second_ , but its voice is too far away. It forgot the voice. It left the voice behind. Michael would curse, let out a loud swear even, but the voice is Elsewhere.

It opens its door.

No matter. The Institute is dark and silent.

Gerard is already gone, and Michael feels all the more guilty.


End file.
